London job confidence leads UK recruitment intentions

Confidence amongst employers in London has reached its highest point since the start of 2001, with a Net figure of 15% of London employers expecting to take on staff in the first quarter of 2004, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

Hazel Detsiny, director at Manpower, says: ìWeíre seeing careful employer hiring intentions amongst UK businesses. The news from London is especially encouraging, where the outlook for jobs is back to pre-September 11th 2001 levels. London tends to lead employment growth across the country - and the good news is that many regions are also recording positive outlooks. The UK is also holding up well internationally recording some of the strongest hiring forecasts not only in Europe but also across the world.î

The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey provides a forecast of employer hiring intentions for the quarter ahead: January to March 2004. 2,500 UK employers were surveyed in the UK and over 35,000 employers in 18 countries globally. The Net Employment Outlook (the balance of employers forecasting to take on more staff) for the UK in Q1 is 9%. This positive hiring outlook brightens further when seasonal variations are removed from the data and the Net Employment Outlook increases to 16% for the quarter ahead.

Eleven of the twelve regions in the UK are planning to take on staff. Wales is the most positive region with an outlook of 24% representing a year-on-year increase of 15 percentage points. The North East also reports a positive outlook of 17%, which is considerably higher than the Q1 average for the region over the last six years ( 5%). Northern Ireland (whose figures are included in the UK report for the first time this quarter) shows a positive outlook of 17%. However, disappointing results were recorded in the East Midlands ( 4%) where the region was down quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, by 22 and 24 percentage points respectively.

Across the UK, seven of the nine industry sectors surveyed are planning to take on staff next quarter. Detsiny adds: ìThere is a varied yet promising picture across the UK sectors. The strength of Transport & Communications
is encouraging to see, however it is the strong outlook from the Hotels & Retail sector which is a particularly encouraging sign: the increase in staffing levels here is to meet growing consumer demand. This is a good sign for candidates looking to work in this sector in the New Year.î


The Transport & Communications sector is recording a strong outlook of 13% representing an increase of 11 percentage points over the year. The Hotels & Retail sector is showing a positive outlook of 8%, which is markedly above the Q1 average of -5% for the last 12 years. Construction is the most positive sector surveyed with an outlook of 15%.

The Manufacturing sector continues to perform poorly with an outlook of 3%, which represents a year-on-year fall of 10 percentage points. This poor figure reflects the lack of employer optimism recently cited by the CBI, which predicts that 36,000 industrial jobs will be lost between December 2003 and February 2004.

Looking at the European picture, the Net Employment Outlook figures are largely positive with the UK and Spain posting the most optimistic forecasts ( 9%) just behind those reported by Norway ( 10%). Other European countries
are reporting stable hiring levels with the exception of Germany, which has its most pessimistic outlook for three quarters at -14%, whilst Ireland has rebounded to an outlook of 3% from its previous negative outlook for Q4
2003.

In the Americas, Canada reported stable hiring intentions ( 1%) in line with their historical first quarter trends whilst the US continued to perform strongly with an outlook of 7%. However, when seasonal variations are removed from these figures, the outlook increases over the last quarter from 10% to 13%.

At the Global level employers in Hong Kong are recording a noticeable increase in outlook to 12% thanks to strong growth in the Services sector. The labour market is expected to be stable elsewhere in the Asia Pacific
region with Japan, Singapore, and Australia reporting only slight shifts in the job outlook for the first three months of the year.